MOURNERS paid their respects to the remains of thousands of bodies due to be exhumed to make way for HS2 as a group of senior MPs toured the borough assessing the £50billion railway’s impact.

St Pancras Church called the protest at the consecrated burial ground in St James’ Gardens, Euston, on Monday to coincide with a “site visit” by the House of Commons HS2 Select Committee.

Reverend Anne Stevens, who has a legal duty to care for her parish’s dead, said: “We bought that land from St James’ Piccadilly in 1887, after it closed as a graveyard. The whole idea was that that land should be a public amenity. The thought that HS2 are going to take away this amenity is terrible. This is needlessly disturbing those that lie there – we reckon there are 50,000 people buried there. We don’t see the need to disturb them.”

Rev Stevens said she had heard that when bodies were exhumed for HS1 they were removed in “broad daylight with JCBs” but that the Church of England had asked HS2 chiefs “to be very careful” about the St James’ Gardens graves.”

The land was owned by the “vestry” of St Pancras which became part of Camden Council when the new borough was formed 50 years ago. The land belongs to Camden Council. 

The official petition from the St Pancras Church Council warned that the vicar has “responsibility for the cure of souls for the thousands of people buried there” and that there are “still at least 35,000 people buried there”.

HS2 officials want to bulldoze two-thirds of St James’ Gardens, which in the late 18th century was an overflow for St James’ Piccadilly Church burial ground. Huge diggers are expected to roll into the park in early 2017 to exhume the bodies and the graves, which include the 200-year-old family tomb of Camden’s main funeral directors Leverton’s, and the President of the Protestant Association, Lord George Gordon, who sparked the “Gordon Riots” by claiming Catholics were, among other things, plotting to turn Smithfield Market into a new seat for the Spanish Inquisition. 

It is just one of the major impacts of the scheme on Camden that was assessed first-hand by the MPs committee on Monday during a nine-hour site visit. 

The committee will be able to recommend amendments to the current HS2 bill that is expected to be voted on by MPs next year. It is made up of four Conservatives – Robert Syms, Henry Bellingham, Sir Peter Bottomley and Geoffrey Clifton-Brown – and Labour’s David Crausby and Mark Hendrick. 

The group made 53 stops in Camden between Swiss Cottage to King’s Cross, including the Alexandra and Ainsworth estate, the Zoo car park – where a third of London’s rare hedgehogs live – the Silverdale Motorcycle Club in Ampthill Estate and Netley School in the Regent’s Park Estate. The tour included two “comfort breaks” at the Pembroke Castle pub and at Netley School, with a 45-minute lunch at the Engineer Pub in Gloucester Avenue.

Paul Braithwaite, an air quality activist and former Lib Dem councillor, criticised the “cursory attention paid to Euston’s prospective devastation”, adding that it was “down­right insulting” that “the impact on Euston station and its environs received such short shrift”.

But Robert Latham, chairman of the HS2 Euston Action Group, said he thought they had been left with a good impression of Camden community groups and the children at Netley School.